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Iowa H istorical Record 



Vol. XVII. JULY, 1901. No 3. 



THE LAST OF THE MUS-QUA-KIES. 



BY HORACE M. REBOK. 




[These pages on the Musquakies (otherwise known as the Foxes) are 
reprinted from a monograph written by Horace M. Rebok, and published 
by W. R. Funk, Dayton, Ohio. Through the courtesy of the publisher 
the State Historical Society of Iowa is enabled to give to the readers of 
The Record the results of Mr. Rebok's investigations.] 

HIS brief narrative is of a people especially interest- 
ing among the tribes of North American Indians 
on account of their innate ability to resist the forces 
of that environment which we call civilization. 
Four hundred members of a prehistoric race, residing on a 
little less than eight acres of land, per capita, among the hills, 
groves, and meadows which skirt the banks of the beautiful 
Iowa River, enjoying the rude, wild life, and cherishing the 
customs of their ancestors of centuries ago, relishing the dog 
feast and growing zealous in the medicine dance, marrying 
and divorcing as their fathers did before the light of Chris- 
tianity reached the banks of the Mississippi River,* without 
church-house or school,*]- or a single communicant of Protestant 



* In the Musquakie tongue, Messa sef>o, great river. 

t A day-school, with one teacher, was maintained at Federal expense at irregular priods, 
1S76-1897, but was a failure. In 1896, Congress appropriated thirty-five thousand dollars 
for the erection of a boarding-school, which was opened September, 189S, and closed its 
first year, June 30, 1899. with an attendance of fifty pupils, but the following year many of 
the Indians withdrew their children from the school. 

XVII — 3 22 



306 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

or Catholic faith, although for many years devoted missionaries 
have faithfully ministered to their physical wants and zealously 
tried to make the story of Christ music to their barbaric ears 
and comfort to their disquieted souls, clinging firmly and 
steadfastly in life and in the hour of death to the superstitions 
of their ancestral warriors, has been such an anomaly in the 
history of North American Indians as has staggered the faith 
of the most zealous believers in the capacity of the American 
people for the assimilation of a race alien to our blood and 
institutions, but native to our soil. But such is no overdrawn 
picture of Indian life as it is presented by a little band of 
Musquakies,* as they have resided in the heart of the great 
and progressive State of Iowa for half a century. 

There have been many erroneous notions in vogue as to 
the meaning of the name and the date of its origin. A story 
has been current that the name originated at the outbreak of 
the Black Hawk war. and that it signifies " coward," and was 
applied to the Foxes by the Sacs as a term of reproach because 
they refused to take part in the hostilities led by Black Hawk, 
chief of the Sacs. No interpretation could be further from 
the truth. The name is of much earlier origin, and is believed 
to have been the ancient name used amon<{ Indians to distin- 
guish this tribe from other tribes before they came in contact 
with the white man. Literally translated, the name means 
red earth, ^ and every Musquakie interrogated on the subject 
will maintain with great earnestness that when the Indian race 
was created, his tribe was the first created, was made of red 
earth, and as soon as the Ke-che Man-i-to, or Great Spirit, 
had created them, he pronounced the word, " Musquakie," 



*The spelling here used is that adopted by the Indians themselves and by the people of 
Iowa among whom they reside. Francis Parkman uses the form Musquawkies in his " A 
Half-Century of Conflict," and the Smithsonian Institute has adopted the spelling Mus- 
kwaki; but I know of no reason why either of these forms should be preferred to the 
local spelling, Musquakies. In a certificate of good character given the chief of the tribe 
in 1824 by John C Calhoun, Secretary of War, and in possession of the present chief of 
the tribe, these people are referred to as the Musquky Nation. "Their real name is 
Musquakies." — Note to Paris Doc. II., N. Y. Col. Hist , IX., ibi. 

I Mus-qua, red, and kit or kee, earth. 



THE LAST OF THE MUSQUAKIES. 307 

and gave it to them as a name for their people forever, thus 
distinguishing and honoring above all others the first tribe 
created. The Musquakies were known in the Algonquin 
tongue as the Outagamies, signifying " foxes," from which the 
French called them Renards, and the Americans, Foxes, and 
they are the Foxes of the confederated tribe known in treaties 
with the Federal Government as the Sac and Fox of the 
Mississippi. The Sacs now live in Oklahoma, the Foxes, in 
Iowa. 

EARLY HISTORY OF THE MUSQUAKIES- 

The Musquakies of Iowa are the remnant of a mighty race 
that played a conspicuous part in the tragic scenes of the great 
Northwest while England and France were struggling for 
vantage-ground among the warring tribes of that covetable 
territory; and later in the early days of our Republic, when 
the pioneers with their families and little fortunes were laying 
the foundation for the present States of Illinois and Wisconsin, 
and blazing a pathway for civilization in the vast region beyond. 
Prior to the middle of the eighteenth century the Musquakies 
were a distinct nation, and for a full century they had swayed 
to and fro through the forests and over the prairies of the 
Northwest, the terror of every other tribe and the firebrands 
of civilization.* Their earlier haunts are hidden among the 
mysteries of the unwritten history of the continent, but tradition 
clearly points to their having once lived along the waters of 
the St. Lawrence, while there is some evidence that Rhode 
Island was their home before the internecine conquests of the 
Iroquois had made the ancient habitations of weaker tribes a 
solitude, and driven their surviving members into the wilder- 
ness of the West. Caleb Atwater, who was a commissioner 
of the United States at the Indian conference at Prairie du 
Chien in 1829, and who visited the Musquakies in their village 
on the west bank of the Mississippi opposite Rock Island,^ 



* Parkman "A Half-Century of Conflict," Vol. I., Ch. XIV., The Outagamie War. 
t Ossein Menes, Rock Island. 



308 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

declared that the Foxes, according to their account of them- 
selves, must have resided in Rhode Island originally, and have 
been driven from thence on the death and overthrow of King 
Philip. " I have arrived at this conclusion very unexpectedly 
to myself," says Mr. Atwater, " from the very correct descrip- 
tion of the physical features of that district and the clear and 
interesting account they gave me of those wars." There can 
be little doubt that the Musquakies once inhabited the country 
along the Atlantic seaboard, but the time of their migration 
to the Northwest must have been before King Philip's War. 
This zealous and ill-fated Wampanoag chief was overthrown 
in 1676, and as early as 1634* J ean Nicolet, serving under 
Samuel de Champlain, governor of New France, in hope of 
rinding a westward passage to China by way of the Great 
Lakes, made his way to the west shore of Lake Michigan and 
the Green Bay country, and recorded the presence of the 
Foxes among the Indian tribes in that locality, -j- And again, 
in 1667, or nine years before Philip's conspiracy against the 
settlers of Massachusetts, Claude Allouez, a French Jesuit, 
who came as a missionary among the Algonquin tribes about 
the Great Lakes, found on the Wolf River, in Wisconsin, a 
Musquakie village containing a thousand warriors. £ At that 
time this number of warriors represented a camp of nearly 
five thousand souls, and it is therefore evident that the great 
body, if not all, of the Musquakies had passed from the east 
side of the Great Lakes to the Green Bay country at an earlier 
date. These Indians relate to this day that the first white 
men their people saw were Englishmen; the next nationality 
they came in contact with was the French; that the French 
were hostile to them and allied other tribes against them and 
finally drove them westward and across the lakes.^ The 
stories of the stirring events that filled these years with deeds 



*Cartier to Frontenac — Winsor, 152. 
t Wisconsin State Historical Society, Report III., 126. 
JThe Jesuit Relation, 1,1., 43. 

§ "This powerful and restless tribe play a conspicuous part in history, being the only 
Algonquin tribe on whom the French ever made war."— Shea, in Wis. Hist. Col. III., 127. 



THE LAST OF THE MUSQUAKIES. 309 

of war and scenes of carnage, and finally wrought such havoc 
in the life of the tribe, are subjects for tradition and camp-fire 
tales to this day among the elders of the tribe. In the warm 
summer days it is not uncommon to see an old man with his 
blanket spread upon the ground and himself disrobed of all 
garments excepting the breech-cloth, basking in the sunshine 
and teaching his grandchildren and the young men of the tribe 
the traditions of former years when the Musquakies acknowl- 
edged no sovereign and feared no foe. 

Among the Indian population focused near the Green Bay 
of Lake Michigan and on Fox River, in 1712, Francis Park- 
man mentions the '• Outagamies, or Foxes, a formidable tribe. 
a source of endless trouble to the French." What the Iroquois 
had been in the East in the seventeenth century, the Musqua- 
kies were in the Northwest about a century later. The French 
sought to hold all the tribes of the Northwest in friendly alli- 
ance, and the Dutch and English traders of the East, through 
the friendly mediation of the Iroquois and the temptation of 
cheap rum, planned to disturb the tranquility of the French 
and designed to destroy their fur trade. A firm alliance was 
formed with the Kickapoos and Mascoutins, with the Rock 
River* as a base of operation, and with these allies the Mus- 
quakies held sway over nearly all of the present States of 
Illinois and Wisconsin. j- They thus sought to beat back the 
Eastern tribes from encroaching upon the w r est and to hold 
the Sioux and other tribes from encroaching upon them from 
the west and north and opening up communication with the 
East. The tribes occupying middle ground and refusing to 
ally their destinies with that of the Musquakies were doomed 
to flight or the cruel fate of the war club and scalping-knife. 
In their wars for dominion the Musquakies were tireless, 
relentless, and wantonly bloody, and themselves finally offered 



* Ossem-a-sepo, from ossem, rock, and sepo, river. The connecting vowel is here intro- 
duced solely for euphony, as is common in the language of the tribe, which is much more 
rhythmical than that of many of their Algonquin neighbors. 

|N. Y. Col. Hist., IX , 889. 



310 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

a greater sacrifice to their inordinate ambition than any other 
tribe of the Northwest suffered for similar reason. Other 
tribes there were who suffered total extinction in defensive 
warfare, but there were none whose numbers were so reduced 
from love of conquest. 

In the spring of 1712 the Musquakies. with a small band of 
Mascoutin allies, numbering in all about three hundred warri- 
ors and seven hundred old men. women, and children, suddenly 
appeared before Fort Detroit. Friction between the com- 
mandant of the fort and the Indians soon arose and subse- 
quently led to open hostilities and to one of the bloodiest 
battles in the history of Indian warfare. The French were 
now able to ally against the Musquakies every tribe that had 
suffered loss of dominion or prowess at their hands, and when 
the outbreak came the Musquakies found arrayed against 
them not only the French garrison, but deadly enemies from 
among the warriors of the Hurons, Ottawas, Pottawottomies, 
Ojibwas, Misisagas, Sacs, Menominees, Illinois, Missouries, 
and " other tribes yet more remote." Among this motley 
crowd, outnumbering the Musquakies four to one, were 
haughty warriors whose hearts wrung w r ith revenge for 
wrongs unatoned, but when the war-whoops arose from the 
French fort a furious and defiant answer came hot from the 
throats of the Musquakies. For nineteen days a murderous 
siege was kept up between the opposing hordes of savages, 
and then the Musquakies evaded their foes under cover of the 
night and intrenched themselves again a few miles distant, 
only to surrender to a miserable fate four days later. The 
men who did not escape in the night were shot to furnish 
amusement for their captors, and the women and children 
were carried into slavery as the spoils of war.* 

The French were making a desperate struggle to control 
the fur trade of the West. With peace among the tribes 
their chances were good, but with inter-tribal wars and attacks 

* Parkman, "A Half-Century of Conflict," I., 270-286. 



THE LAST OF THE MUSQUAKIES. 311 

on their traders the thrifty merchants of New York were sure 
to demoralize their trade. The memories of Detroit were 
fresh in the minds of all when the Musquakies revived their 
old feud with the Illinois.* It was an unhappy day for both 
the French and the Musquakies when, influenced by English 
traders or seized by a savage frenzy, the bonds of peace were 
again broken between Father Onantio and his children. From 
this time until their subjugation in 1732 the forests of the 
Northwest rung with the hideous war-cries of Musquakie 
demons scenting for the blood of the French and their allies. 

For a time the French sought the pacification of the tribe 
by every means of cajolery and intimidation. At one time 
the Musquakie prisoners were burned to death by slow fire 
as a warning to their survivors, and again, their prisoners 
were returned unharmed as an evidence of love and friend- 
ship, -j- But it was the hazard of the cost that gave the French 
pause. To strike and fail stayed the hand of not only the 
commandants of the French forts, but called from the king an 
order to chance not blood and treasure in so doubtful an 
undertaking.^; 

The Musquakies were skilled in the arts of statecraft to a 
surprising degree, in the hard school of experience. The 
impending danger of racial extinction had made their minds 
as active and resourceful as their limbs nimble. From the 
very nature of the contest, hostilities could not be limited to 
the French on one side and the Musquakies on the other, but 
other tribes were compelled to ally their fortunes with one or 
the other antagonist. Alliances were easily made and enforced, 
and when another peace conference was proposed at Montreal, 
in 1 7 18, it is distinctly mentioned that " Ouchata and the war 

* Report, I,ewis and Clark, American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I., 711., " To them is 
justly attributed the almost entire destruction of the Missouries, the Illinois, theCahokias, 
Kaskaskias, and Peorias." 

f Memoir De I<ignery, 1726, Wis. Hist. Col. I., 22-23. 

X Memoire du Roy, 29 April, 1727, cited by Parkman. This order was about three years 
after the Colonial Minister of France declared the king's policy toward the Musquakies 
by announcing to the army in America that " his majesty will reward the officer who will 
reduce, or rather destroy them." Also, Paris Docs., VIII., N. Y. Col. Hist., IX., 1005. 



312 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

chiefs of the Foxes, with a train of their allies, the Pilaris, 
(Winnebagoes), Sauks, Kickapoos, Mascoutins, and Sioux" 
were invited. The contest here going on was more than 
individual revenge or tribal frenzy. The people of the Algon- 
quin tongue had been thrown into the Northwest country with 
the Huron-Iroquois on the east, the Dakotas on the west, and 
a strange people from over the sea, with strange tongues, 
were closing in upon them from both the north and the south. 
To the Musquakies the only way out was to fight their way 
out, and they became at once the representatives and cham- 
pions of the instincts of their race. 

Events were now crowding upon each other to hasten the 
final struggle between nature and her despoiler, as if earth 
thirsted again for the blood of her children. Shall a French- 
man or an Englishman tan a mink hide or get the profit on a 
pelt? — that was the question. France soon determined that 
her trade could not exist in the new territory so long as the 
Musquakies continued a formidable power, and, since they 
could not be pacified, they must be exterminated. The king 
determined this course, and in 1723 the colonial minister 
declared, " His majesty will reward the officer who will 
reduce, or rather destroy them." The Canadian governors, 
fearing the outcome, were slow to undertake the task, and 
the hour was deferred when tempest and storm should be 
stilled by the agonies of an expiring race. When the crisis 
came the Musquakies hazarded all for the religion of their 
fathers. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was the 
inspiring doctrine that guided each blow, whether directed by 
a savage or a Christian, and earth drank deep of the blood of 
both. What savagery the instincts of the race did not give, 
French brandy, English rum, and the duplicity of the white 
man supplied. The French had planned an unequal match, 
and were fanning the embers of ancient animosities against 
the Musquakies about the camp-fires of every tribe that emis- 
saries could reach, and were welcoming every means that 
could be evoked in assisting them in the mad determination 



THE LAST OF THE MUSQUAKIES. 313 

to exterminate their dreaded foes. In the earlier years of this 
internecine conflict, the Kickapoos and Mascoutins were allies 
of the Musquakies, but in the final blow, dealt by a union of 
the Hurons, Iroquois, and Ottawas, in the winter of i73 2 > tne y 
gave aid and comfort to the foes of their former friends.* The 
disasters of that winter were so great that frequent stories 
were current, and even one semi-official report was made that 
the Musquakies had been exterminated. f As we now well 
know, this report, so pleasing to the French, did not prove to 
be true. The Musquakies had been greatly weakened and 
deeply humiliated, but not destroyed. In 1667, before their 
conquests for dominion over the hunting-grounds between the 
Green Bay country and the Rock River, their warriors num- 
bered a thousand strong. In 1718, six years after the disasters 
met at Fort Detroit, they were reported as five hundred war- 
riors; in 1728, as two hundred; and in 1736, as having been 
reduced to one hundred.^; But even with this small fighting 
force, peace did not come to the French forts and to the 
Musquakie villages until after Canada and the Northwest 
were transferred to Great Britain in 1763, at the close of the 
French and Indian Wars. 

THE SAC AND FOX CONFEDERACY.?. 

Following the disasters of the recent wars, a closer alliance 
than previously existed was formed between the Foxes and 



* Parkraan "A Half-Century of Conflict," I , 330. 

f Relation de la Defaite des Renards par les Sauvages Hurons et Iroquois, le 2S Fev. 
1732. — Archives de la Marine, cited by Parkman. 

\ These figures are taken from French official reports found in N. Y. Col. Hist. In con- 
sidering the population of the tribe at these different periods, it must be taken into 
account that prior to these wars the number of warriors was a much more accurate index 
to the population of the tribe than after the wars. Although women and children suf- 
fered greatly, their numbers were not reduced in the same proportion as those actively 
engaged. The report of 171S says, "They number five hundred men and abound in 
women and children." "This nation, now migratory, consists, when not separated, still 
of one hundred men bearing arms."— A^. V. Col. Hist., IX., 1055, Enumeration of Indian 
Tribes, 1736. Same authority gives Sakis (Sacs) at one hundred and fifty, but remarks 
that others count only one hundred and twenty. 

§ In his autobiography, page 15, Black Hawk says that the union of the two tribes took 
place on the Sac River in Wisconsin—" The Foxes abandoned their villages and joined the 



314 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

the Sacs. : ' : The two tribes closely resembled each other in 
language, customs, and religion, and evidently had sprung 
from a common stock. Previous to their great reduction in 
the sanguinary conflicts of the preceding half-century, each 
tribe had asserted an independent sovereignty which found 
them as often arraigned against each other as in mutual 
defense. The new confederacy sought to terminate inter- 
tribal war and to strengthen the common defense. To these 
ends mutual obligations were imposed, but there was little 
community of interest or feeling beyond that arising from 
military necessity, and whether or not the terms of the com- 
pact warranted the steps, each tribe afterwards maintained 
the right to declare war and make treaties of peace, with 
both their white neighbors and with other Indian tribes, with- 
out the consent of the other party to the alliance. The new 
confederacy was not a new nation, even in the meager sense 
in which that term was understood among Indian tribes. It 
was merely an alliance defensive, and for the cessation of 
hostilities. Denationalization never took place on the one 
hand and assimilation on the other. Even the linking of the 
two tribes together in later years in treaties by the Federal 
Government did not amalgamate them, and no error could be 
more palpable than the popular one made by many writers 
and Government officials that they were '*as one people." 
The ancient clans and a perfect line of chieftainship have 
been handed down in each tribe to the present day. 



Sacs," — but this Sac chief claims no further prestige for his nation by admitting that the 
arrangement was " mutually obligatory upon both parties." Fox tradition has it that the 
Sacs came over to the Foxes. If the union took place on the Sac River, the tribes did not 
long remain there, for the first military demonstration against them was within ten years 
after the formation of the confederacy and resulted in their expulsion from the Fox 
River in 1746. Prior to this union the Foxes had been the dominant tribe and in some of 
the early French documents the tribes are referred to as the " Fox and Saguis," notwith- 
standing the more euphonious and now generally accepted appellation, "Sac and Fox." 
* At best we have only tradition and circumstantial evidence to assist us in fixing the 
time of this alliance, but it clearly took place after 1732 and prior to 1746, and the logical 
conclusion seems to be that it followed soon after the disasters of the former date. In 
1729 the Foxes proposed a union with the Sinnekes (Senecas), and this was encouraged 
by the English authorities, but was prevented by the duplicity of a French trader who 
was in the Seneca country. — N. Y. Col. Hist., V. gi 1 . 



THE LAST OF THE MUSQUAKIES. 315 

From the time of this alliance until the social dissolution 
of the confederacy more than a century later, the movements 
of both tribes were mainly by the same rivers, over the same 
prairies, and through the same forests. By the two rivers of 
Wisconsin bearing the tribal names, the Sac and the Fox, the 
camp-fires of both nations burned brightly during the days of 
feasting and dancing in celebration of buried animosities and 
friendships resurrected. But the monotony of peace soon 
made the Foxes restive. As well cage an Abyssinian lion 
behind bars of bamboo as restrain a Musquakie warrior of 
the eighteenth century by the fetters of peace. Where books 
are short, memories are long; and the chastisements by the 
French were both unforgotten and unforgiven. Within a 
decade after their last humiliation, the Foxes again became a 
deadly menace to the French and levied heavy tribute on 
every cargo that sought passage through the Fox River.* 
This unwise course again cost the Foxes dearly, and in 1746 
they, with their allies, were driven from the river bearing 
their name, and took refuge on the waters of the Wisconsin. 
The Sacs now established themselves in two well-constructed 
villages at Prairie du Sac, and the Foxes at Prairie du Chien. 
where they were later joined by the Sacs. For a hundred 
years the tribes followed the current of the Wisconsin to its 
confluence with the Mississippi and thence down that noble 
stream as far as the mouth of the Missouri. On its beautiful 
banks and its fertile valleys burned the lodge fires of three 
generations. In the main, the Foxes kept to the west bank 
of the Mississippi and the Sacs to the east. When the hunt- 
ing and trapping season came in the fall of 1766, a general 
movement of Sacs set in from the Wisconsin towards the 

*A story persistently told, but concerning which Parkman says contemporary docu- 
ments are silent, runs like this: "A French trader named Marin determined to put an 
end to this sort of piracy on the Fox River, and accordingly organized a company of 
soldiers and Menominee Indians with whom he surprised and defeated the Foxes, first at 
Little Butte des Morts and later at Great Butte des Morts, and from this event these 
mounds are said to have taken their names." Marin, with the usual mendacity of man 
hunters, is said to have reported the destruction of the whole tribe. Various dates from 
1725 to 1746 are assigned to this affair, but whatever there was of it in all probability 
occurred in connection with the campaigns against the Foxes, resulting in the migration 
of both the Sac and Fox Tribes to the Wisconsin River in 1746. 



316 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

Rock River, and the following spring of 1767 witnessed 
busy scenes of village making and maize planting in the tri- 
angular valley formed by the confluence of the Rock River 
with the Mississippi, the establishment of Saukenuk made 
memorable in the traditions of the Sacs by the birth of the 
noted war chief Black Hawk, in the first year of its existence, 
and made famous sixty-five years later by the heroic but ill- 
advised efforts of that intrepid leader to recover the fields of 
his people and the graves of their fathers from the desecra- 
tion of insolent and illegal squatters. 

For nearly twenty-five year after Saukenuk became the 
center of the Sac population, the Foxes clung to their ancient 
haunts at Prairie du Chien.* The most conservative of all 
tribes, they have contested every lake and river from the St. 
Lawrence to the Iowa with the superior forces which have 
attended their fate. But it is interesting to note the recuper- 
ative power of these people after the hard lot which befell 
them on their expulsion from their old hunting-grounds in 
the country tributary to the Green Bay, and if French traders 
and hostile Indians are to be believed, the men among them 
who were -able to bear arms were almost exterminated at the 
ill-fated battle of Butte des Morts, the Hill of the Dead. But 
a few years span the period between youth and manhood — 
old age lingers in the twilight while youth approaches with 
fleeting feet — and about the patches of corn and beans and 
along the river banks at Prairie du Chien, the young sons of 
Fox mothers, who had escaped the bullets of the French and 
the scalping-knife of their allies, sprung into strong and 
intrepid warriors in a few brief years. In 1763 the number 
of men in the Fox village was reported as three hundred and 
twenty;f in 1782 the chiefs and head men consorting at 



* Wis. Hist. Col. XII., 87, S3.— The Foxes are supposed to have finally deserted Prairie 
du Chien about 1790, although they had villages down on the west bank of the Mississippi 
many years before. 

fSir William Johnson, Bart., Nov. 18, 1763. N. Y. Col. Hist., Vol. VII., 583. I,ieut. James 
Gorrell's Journal, Wis. Hist. Col., Vol. I., p. 32, 1762, reported 350.** 

**The above reports on Fox population are probably as reliable as any estimates ever 
made, but 300 warriors at these periods no doubt represented a total population of as 



THE LAST OF THE MUSOUAKIES. 317 

Michilimackinac were two hundred;* and in 1787 Joseph 
Ainsee found three hundred Foxes (men) in a village on the 
Mississippi near the mouth of the Wisconsin. -j- 

After leaving Prairie du Chien, the Foxes established them- 
selves on the west side of the Mississippi River in the region 
around Dubuque, and this remained the focus of their popula- 
tion until 1830, when an incident occurred which caused them 
to move down the river to the vicinity of Davenport. The 
Foxes had been at war for several years with the Sioux and 
the Menominees. In the winter of 1829, these nations repre- 
sented to General Joseph M. Street, Indian agent at Prairie 
du Chien, that they were ready and willing to bury the 
tomahawk with the Musquakies and requested them to be 
invited to the agency for that purpose. The Foxes cheer- 
fully accepted the invitation and sent out from their camp at 
Dubuque their principal chiefs and warriors, who left their 
implements of war behind, and proceeded up the river to join 
the tribes in establishing peace. The Sioux had sent out 
spies to watch their course. On the second night after leav- 
ing their village, the Musquakie braves pitched their tents on 
the east side of the Mississippi, a short distance below the 
Wisconsin River, and when cooking their evening meal were 
fallen upon by a band of Sioux and Menominees and cruelly 
massacred. All their chiefs were slain and but two braves 
escaped to carry back the message of treachery and death. 
The Government failed to call upon the Sioux or Menominees 
to deliver up the murderous band who had used the agent to 
carry out their treacherous plot, and the crime against the 
nation and its friendly wards went unpunished. But the sur- 



much as two or three thousand. On April 13, 17S6, Montreal traders in a memorial to the 
Government reported the men of the Fox tribe as 1,400, but this must be regarded as 
wholly unreliable. They were requesting goods for the Foxes. Report of Lewis and 
Clark estimates the Foxes at 1,200, of whom 300 were warriors. In 1S05, Lieut. 1,. M. 
Pike estimated the Foxes at 1,750, of whom 400 were warriors, and the Sacs at 2,850, of 
whom 700 were warriors. In a message to Congress in 1S25, President Monroe estimated 
the confederated tribes at 6,400, and in 1829 they were reported as 6,600. 

*Wis. Hist. Col., XII., 60. 

fldem, X., 90. 



318 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

viving Foxes resolved to punish the crime by Indian stand- 
ards of justice. A half-breed by the name of Morgan* was 
selected chief of the tribe. He formed a war party of the 
best young men in the village and started on his mission of 
revenue. The warriors secluded themselves in the bluffs 
opposite Prairie du Chien. and under cover of night swam 
the Mississippi and stealthily crept upon their foes now sleep- 
ing under the protection of the guns of Fort Crawford, and 
before the fort could be aroused and the village assume 
defense, the Foxes slew twenty-eight braves and many 
women and children in the lodges of their enemies, and suc- 
cessfully made their escape across the Mississippi and back to 
their camp. For fear of being attacked by an alliance of the 
Northern tribes, they now moved down the river to the 
vicinity of Davenport. 

THE MUSQUAKIES AND THE NATION. 

When Canada and the country north and west of the Ohio 
passed from the dominion of France to Great Britain in 1763 
a period of rest came to the border frontier, and the Mus- 
quakies spent a season of comparative peace in the pleasures 
of the chase and the indolence of camp life. The turn that 
had taken in New World politics created no greater joy in 
the homes of English settlers and at English trading-posts 
than about the lodge fires of the Musquakies. They now 
counted the sacrifices their fathers had made at Detroit and 
along the Fox and Wisconsin rivers as having been rewarded 
by the Great Spirit in seeing the land over which they had 
contended pass from the possession of their ancient foe, and 
in their new homes on the Mississippi there was great rejoic- 
ing over the successes of their British father. 

But the revolution soon came and with it a confusion of 
interests that was no less trying to the Indian tribes between 



♦Several of his descendants now live in the tribe, and George Morgan ( Ash-e-ton-e- 
quot), the secretary of the tribe, is of this descent. 



THE LAST OF THE MUSQUAKIES. 319 

the Ohio and the head waters of the Mississippi than to the 
settlers on the frontier. The British were in command of 
the military posts of the Northwest, and about these places 
were huddled the English, and French and Indians friendly 
to the British cause. British agents were everywhere active 
in forming alliances with Indian tribes and in bestowing Eng- 
lish rum and goods on those who smoked with them the 
calumet.* Much to their surprise, the Musquakies and their 
allies refused to join in the war against the Americans, j- and 
an English officer reported them as the only Western tribes 
in favor of the rebels. £ The Sioux, the implacable enemies 
of the Sacs and Foxes, were hired to keep them in subjection. 
In 1780 the captain of the fort at Michilimackinac reported 
that these tribes had taken up the hatchet against the British.^ 
and the enormous expenditure of the Indian department at 
that place during the preceding year was partly explained 
to the British governor as occasioned by the large bribes 
demanded by the Sioux in order to induce them to make 
threatening demonstrations against these tribes.** 

We are now far enough removed from the politics of the 
Revolution and the early years of the Republic to do simple 
justice to these bands of barbarian friends of the fathers of 
the Revolution without bedimming the fame of a Virginia 
colonel or spoiling the chances of an Indiana general in a 
presidential campaign. Indian traditions are pronounced the 
most untrustworthy evidence upon which to base history, but 
it frequently so happens that they are to be taken with no 
greater allowance than the fictions of glory wreathed about 
the head of a favorite military hero. Whether from a resent- 
ment of the alliance formed by the British with the Sioux and 

*Gautier's Journal, 1777-78, Wis. Hist. Col., XI., 100-11 1. 

t Gautier to De Peyster, 126-7; also, de Peyster to Haldimand, 127-9, 132, 134; Wis. Hist. 
Col., XI. 

I Sinclair to Haldimand, Aug. 3, 17S0; Wis. Hist. Col., XL, 159. 

§ "The Sacks and Renards have taken up the hatchet against us." — Capt. Mompesson to 
De Peyster, Sept. 20, lySo. 

** Major De Peyster, to General Haldimand, June 8, 1780.— Wis. Hist. Col.. XII., jo. 



320 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

other enemies of their people, or from an aversion to seeing 
success come to foreign arms on American soil; whether 
from motives of the basest selfishness or from the love of that 
liberty which is the darling dream of the savage in battle or 
in the chase, the Sacs and Foxes voluntarily cast their fortunes 
with the Americans, and were temporarily diverted from their 
purpose on several occasions only by the most corrupt and 
strenuous efforts of the British. They played little part in 
the active hostilities of the Revolution, but their mission 
proved to be a far more important one. Besides furnishing 
Americans in the West with bullets from their lead mines on 
the Mississippi, the Sacs and Foxes neutralized the influence 
of the British among the Western tribes and saved the coun- 
try from a general uprising of Indians between the Ohio and 
the Mississippi. Patrick Henry, then governor of Virginia, 
and Thomas Jefferson realized the importance of the Ameri- 
cans establishing military stations in this part of the country, 
and in 1778 Col. George Rogers Clark was commissioned 
by Virginia "Commandant of the Eastern Illinois and its 
dependencies." Clark was a bold and courageous leader, 
and his movements down the Ohio and across the country to 
Kaskaskia and the Mississippi were skillfully executed, and 
during this notable expedition he acted well his part; but the 
accounts of this military hero, as is too often the case, leave 
little room for credit to others who made his exploits possible. 

The Foxes continued to maintain their principal village at 
Prairie du Chien and the Sacs at Saukenuk, but bands from 
each were scattered along the Mississippi nearly as far south 
as St. Louis, and their runners penetrated far into the interior 
on the east to learn every bit of news borne through the 
Indian lines of the stirring events now going on east of the 
Alleghenies. 

On reaching Kaskaskia, Clark learned from rumors that 
head men from the Sacs, Foxes, Ottawas, Chippewas, Potta- 
wottomies, and some minor tribes were already as far east as 
the Illinois River, eagerly awaiting an opportunity to talk 



THE LAST OF THE MUSQUAKIES. 321 

with the Long Knives, as the Indians had been taught by the 
British to call the Americans, and to get a truthful account of 
the war between the colonies and the mother country. The 
Indians were invited to a conference at Cahokia, nearly oppo- 
site St. Louis, and they cheerfully responded to the invitation. 
Treaties of allegiance to the American cause were there estab- 
lished between these tribes and the United States. Thrilling 
accounts are given of the harangues of Clark to the Indians 
on this occasion, and of daring and heroic deeds of his to 
frighten the Indians into an alliance.* But these stories bear 
such internal evidence of mendacity as to breathe a suspicion 
that a more faithful report of the attitude of the Indians would 
have robbed this military hero of much of the glory and 
romance which he and unkind friends were wont to wreathe 
about him. Had the Foxes now taken up the war club for 
the British against the Americans, as they had done in former 
years against the French, and become the leaders of this mot- 
ley crowd then wavering between two masters, Clark and his 
little band would have been welcomed to hospitable graves- 
on the banks of the the Ohio instead of meeting these Indians 
as friends in a peace council in western Illinois; the wilder- 
ness would again have been set on fire, and the savage war- 
cry would have rung through the forests and valleys from the 
Alleghenies to the Mississippi. With peace among these 
tribes, the Americans were able to divide the possession of 
the Northwest Territory with the British and to prepare a 
successful demand for its cession to the United States in the 
treaty at the close of the Revolution. 

During the Revolution the Musquakies were in possession 
of the lead mines on the Mississippi River known as the 
Spanish mines, and in 1788 made a cession to Julien Dubuque, 
granting to him the right to occupy and work the mines within 
a district containing about one hundred and forty-eight thou- 
sand acres of land in the vicinity where the city of Dubuque 

* "Winning of the West," Roosevelt, II., 54-57. 
XVII— 3 23 



322 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

is now situated. In 1810, the year of Dubuque's death, the 
Indians manufactured from these and neighboring mines 400,- 
000 pounds of lead, and continued to return to them for their 
supply of bullets until after the Black Hawk war. Here it 
was that the last war chief of the Musquakies, Ma-tau-e-qua, 
was born in 1810, and his voice was heard in few councils 
until the time of his death in 1897, when he did not reproach 
the white man and vigorously arraign Julien Dubuque for 
attempting to seize, under the cloak of a Spanish grant, the 
title to these lands to which the Musquakies had given him 
the right only to occupy and work.* 

In their political relations with the Government, the Mus- 
quakies had been unfortunate, and the Government has equally 
suffered from the lack of a more open and equitable policy from 
the beginning with these people and their allies, the Sacs. After 
Jefferson had purchased Louisiana from Napoleon he hastened 
to establish peaceful relations with the Indians along the Mis- 
sissippi and Missouri rivers and sought to quiet the title to 
lands held by the Indians east of the Mississippi, in the Fed- 
eral Government. William Henry Harrison was then gov- 
ernor of the Indian Territory of Louisiana and Superintendent 
of Indian Affairs for that district, with headquarters at St. 
Louis. To him was delegated, in June, 1804, the responsi- 
bility of making a treaty with the Sacs who, as Jefferson 
wrote, "own the country in the neighborhood of our settle- 
ments of Kaskaskia and St. Louis. "*j* The treaty was made 
on the following November 3, and included the Foxes, who 
were recognized as holding two-fifths interest in the posses- 
sions ceded east of the Mississippi, but the remarkable phase 
of this first and very important treaty with these two tribes is 
that there is strong probability that not a single Fox or Mus- 
quakie was within a hundred miles of St. Louis at the time 

♦ Dubuque transferred part of the claim to Auguste Chateau in 1S04, but the military 
authorities of the United States sustained the claims of the Indians from the death of 
Dubuque until the mines were embraced in the "Black Hawk Purchase" of 1832, and the 
Supreme Court, 1853, refused to recognize the claims of the heirs of Chateau. 

f American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I., 693. 



THE LAST OF THE MUSOUAKIES. 323 

the treaty was made, and that of all the chiefs and warriors 
of the two tribes the instrument bears the signature of but 
four Sacs and one half-breed,* the former of whom, as Black 
Hawk asserted and as the Sacs and the Foxes have always 
affirmed, had been dispatched to St. Louis in the autumn of 
that year to plead for the freedom of a Sac who was being 
held at that post on the charge of murder. The account of 
this treaty as given by Black Hawk is so representative of 
the Indian version of the case that it may well be here incor- 
porated to throw light on the first and perhaps greatest mis- 
take, not to say blunder, made by our Government in dealing 
with these people :f 

"One of ourj people killed an American, was taken prisoner and was 
confined in the prison of St. Louis for the offense. We held a council at 
our village to see what could be done for him, and determined that Ouash- 
quame, Pashepaho, Ouchequaka, and Hashequarhiqua should go down to 
St. Louis, see our American father, and do all they could to have our friend 
released by paying for the person killed, thus covering the blood and satis- 
fying the relations of the murdered man. This being the only means with 
us for saving a person who had killed another, and we then thought it was 
the same way with the whites. 

"The party started with the good wishes of the whole nation, who had 
high hopes that the emissaries would accomplish the object of their mission. 
The relations of the prisoner blacked their faces and fasted, hoping the 
Great Spirit would take pity on them and return husband and father to his 
sorrowing wife and weeping children. 

" Quashquame and party remained a long time absent. They at length 
returned and encamped near the village, a short distance below it, and did 
not come up that day, nor did any one approach their camp. They appeared 
to be dressed in fine coats and had medals. From these circumstances we 
were in hopes that they had brought good news. Early the next morning 

♦Quashquame was a Sac village chief and signed several subsequent treaties on behalf 
of the Sacs; Pashepaho was a Sac war chief whose identity is likewise discovered as late 
as 1S42; from Black Hawk's testimony and from tradition, Ouchequaka and Hashequarhi- 
qua also appear to have been Sacs, but their rank is unknown and they do not appear in 
any subsequent treaties; Layouvis bears a name indicating French rather than Indian 
origin, and was probably a half-breed who may have been attached to either tribe. 

I In weighing Black Hawk's testimony, it is well to remember that he was thirty-seven 
years old at the date of the treaty and the time of the events he relates, and was then a 
conspicuous character in the village at Saukeuuk. 

| Black Hawk habitually used "our," "we," and "us" in referring to the Sacs, but 
referred to the Foxes as such, just as he would have referred to the Sioux or any other 
tribe. 



324 



IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 



the Council Lodge was crowded, Quashquame and party came up and gave 
us the following account of their mission: 

"'On our arrival at St. Louis we met our American father and explained 
to him our business, urging the release of our friend. The American chief 
told us he wanted land. We agreed to give him some on the west side of 
the Mississippi, likewise more on the Illinois side opposite Jefferson. When 
the business was all arranged we expected to have our friend released to 
come home with us. About the time we were ready to start, our brother 
was let out of the prison. He started and ran a short distance when he was 
SHOT DEAD! ' 

"This was all they could remember of what had been said and done. It 
subsequently appeared that they had been drunk the greater part of the 
time while at St. Louis."— Autobiography, pp. 22, 23. 

To one familiar with the dilatory methods of these Indians, 
their stubborn resistance to every encroachment, and their 
religious superstition to affixing their names to any document, 
it is inconceivable that time sufficient should have elapsed 
between the 27th day of June and the 3d day of November 
for the receipt of the Washington orders at St. Louis, the dis- 
patch of messengers among the Sac and Fox bands between 
St. Louis and the Wisconsin River, tribal and intertribal 
councils where the important questions involved should have 
been discussed and determined, and competent representatives 
returned to St. Louis to conclude the treaty. Nay, more, 
that they should have consented to dispose of their almost 
undisputed possession of the rich valleys and prolific hunt- 
ing-grounds between the Illinois and the Wisconsin rivers, 
embracing about fifty millions of acres, on the first proposi- 
tion made to them, and that, too, for the paltry sum of an 
annuity of one thousand dollars, or that the head men and 
warriors of both tribes, numbering several hundred, so fond 
of display and quick to seize every opportunity for recogni- 
tion and favor, should have deliberately delegated but five of 
their number to make the journey to St. Louis and transact 
this important piece of business, no one familiar with their 
character and history will be disposed to affirm. 

From the time of the Revolution until the War of 181 2, 
the Sacs and Foxes maintained peaceful relations with the 



THE LAST OF THE MUSQUAKIES. 325 

United States and extended a cordial hand to honest advent- 
urers and settlers. In 1803, Lewis and Clark reported them 
"extremely friendly to the whites,"* and Jefferson, referring 
to them, thus positively declared, " They have always been 
peaceful and friendly." But the fatal error of the governor 
of Louisiana in driving a sharp bargain with a few drunkenj- 
and irresponsible members of one band was sure to cost his 
nation dearly. No sooner was the treaty of 1804 ratified and 
the news spread among the Indian tribes than the Pottawot- 
tomies and others began to lay claims to parts of the territory 
ceded by the Sacs and Foxes, and a few years later the 
United States was compelled to make treaties with other 
tribes, granting them large annuities for small parts of the 
land Governor Harrison had taken from the Sacs and Foxes 
for an annuity of one thousand dollars. £ When the treaty 
was proclaimed both tribes repudiated it, and, although they 
had been the mainstay of the colonists in the West during 
the Revolution, as soon as the War of 1812 broke out they 
threw themselves on the side of the British, and for several 
years were a deadly menace to the Americans along the Mis- 
sissippi and its tributaries. In the treaty of Ghent between 
the United States and Great Britain at the close of the war, 
it was especially provided that each nation should put an end 
to hostilities with the Indian tribes with whom they were at 
war. James Monroe, then Secretary of War, on March 11, 
1815, commissioned William Clark, governor of the Missouri 
territory, Ninean Edwards, governor of the Illinois territory, 
and Colonel Auguste Chateau, § to conclude treaties of peace 
with the Sacs, Foxes, and many other tribes of the North- 



* American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I., 711. 

t Pashepaho, one of the five signers, was called The Stabber, and is frequently referred 
to in accounts of the period as a drunken, murderous debauchee. Tradition relates that 
Quashquame received a barrel of whiskey on this visit to St. Louis and had a good supply 
of it with him on his return to camp. Black Hawk made a similar charge. 

J United States Statutes at Large, VII., 147, 320; Black Hawk's Autobiography, 79. 

§ One of the witnesses to treaty of 1S04, and the same person to whom Dubuque illegally 
transferred a large part of the Fox grant in the same year. 



326 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

west. The commission took up headquarters at St. Louis 
and designated Portage des Sioux, a point a few miles above 
the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, as a 
convenient place for assembling the tribes. Almost immedi- 
ately upon their arrival they reported to the Secretary of 
War evidence of continued hostility on the part of the Sacs 
and Foxes of the Rock River, thus distinguishing the main 
body of the tribes from a small band which had located on 
the Missouri River. Letter after letter reached the office of 
the secretary, giving it as the opinion of the commissioners 
that these tribes would not recognize the authority of the 
United States and urging a strong military movement against 
them. Many depredations and murderous sallies against 
American settlers were reported in the Sac and Fox country. 
The principal chiefs and warriors of the two tribes refused to 
accept an invitation to a conference with the commissioners, 
and the few stragglers from these nations, appearing at 
Portage des Sioux, treated the commissioners with the utmost 
insolence and contempt. 

The cause of the Sacs and Foxes taking up arms against 
the American people in the War of 1812, and of their refusal 
to treat with the commissioners of the United States was now 
plain, and is fully apparent in the correspondence between 
the commissioners and the War Department, as also in the 
treaties afterwards made. :i: The treaty of 1804 had been 
brooded over about the lodge fires of the two nations ever 
since the bleak November day when Quashquame and his 
companions returned to tell the melancholy tale of the sale of 
their homes and the fate of their brother, and when British 
agents carried the war belt among the Western tribes they 
found the Sacs and Foxes naturally eager to again take up 
the hatchet with their old allies against an enemy they had 
befriended and trusted, as they thought, to their own ruin. 
And now when the war was over they were slow to acknowl- 

* American State Papers, Indian Affairs, II., 7-10, United States Statutes at L,arge, VII., 

135, 141- 



THE LAST OF THE MUSQUAKIES. 327 

edge the defeat of their British father, and saw little to hope 
for in re-establishing friendly relations with the Americans. 
But the appeal to arms had failed, and the logic of .events 
forced the Indians to finally realize that their only hope lay in 
their acceptance of the terms offered them by the commis- 
sioners, and they were compelled to "assent to, recognize, 
establish, and confirm the treaty of St. Louis," without any 
further attempt on the part of the Government to redress the 
grievances which they had suffered, thus permanently fasten- 
ing upon them the treaty of 1804. 

This is, indeed, a sorrowful chapter in the annals of our 
history, but the full measure of retribution for the treaty of 
1804 did not come until, in 1832, Black Hawk, jaded and 
harassed to desperation by the indignities heaped upon his 
followers by a lawless vanguard of frontiersmen, again crossed 
to the Illinois side of the Mississippi to raise a crop of corn 
with the Pottawottomies and Winnebagoes for his half-starved 
people, in the hope, as there is reason to believe, of reclaiming 
Saukenuk the following year. Here fate pursued the savage 
through the wilderness and haunted the settler and the soldier 
in every quarter. The cowardly assault of Stillman's men 
upon a flag of truce and the wanton murder of one of its 
bearers, * precipitated a war as defenseless as it was cruel, 
and placed a price in treasure and blood upon the cessions of 
the treaty of 1804 of which its author little dreamed. 

The chiefs and warriors of the Foxes, like Keokuk, one of 
the chiefs of the Sacs, did not approve of Black Hawk's 
crossing the Mississippi, and, as a people, held aloof from the 
war. The few Musquakie adventurers who joined Black 
Hawk during the fight, did so on their own responsibility, 
but when the treaty of peace was made we again behold the 
imperialism of the soldier grasping for more land, and the 
land of the Foxes confiscated as freely, by the arbitrament of 
a war in which they had no part, as the land of the Sacs.j- 

The Federal Government was now pressing a policy with 

*Wis. His. Col. VII., 320, X., 157, XII., 237-9, 26 3- Autobiography of Black Hawk, 96, 166. 
f Preamble, Treaty 1832, U. S. Statutes at Large, VII., 374. 



328 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

these nations, uncertain in every particular except in its pur- 
pose to wrest from them every foot of soil they possessed 
and leave them to shift for themselves in a struggle with arid 
land and hostile tribes beyond the Missouri. What land was 
left them after the confiscation* of 1832 was reached for in 
1836. but only 1,250,000 acres obtained. Six years later the 
Government again pressed its suit for land, and swept from 
them the last acre of their fertile valleys in Iowa. But the 
years following the treaty of 1804 had been filled with bitter 
experiences, and in them the Government as well as the 
Indians learned wisdom and moderation. The treaty of 1836 
awarded the Sacs and Foxes $177,000 in cash, goods, imple- 
ments of industry, and the payment of debts, and $200,000 in 
a permanent trust fund bearing an annuity of five per centum; 
while the treaty of 1842, besides providing a reservation 
beyond the Missouri River, gave them more than $1,000,000, 
of which $800,000 was likewise vested in a trust fund. In 
these latter treaties we see the broader, fairer, and more 
intelligent policy of the Government toward the natives of 
our soil, even while the administration of Indian affairs was in 
the hands of the War Department, and it is noteworthy that 
the two important treaties here referred to bear the signatures 
of a large number of chiefs, head men, and warriors, the Sacs 
signing for the Sac nation and the Foxes for the Fox nation. 
A treaty such as William Henry Harrison submitted to the 
Secretary of War in 1804, and he to Jefferson, who trans- 
mitted it to the Senate for approval, at this later period would 
not have passed the head of the department, and today no 
agent in the field would venture to submit such a document 
to his superior. The Christian doctrine of universal brother- 
hood was working its way into our civilization, and the doc- 
trine of the bully and barbarian, that " the most ultimately 
righteous of all wars is a war with savages," -j- was fast retreat- 
into the jungles of the beast whence it came. 

* Only part of the land ceded in the treaty was taken as the right of war; the rest was 
paid for. 
t Roosevelt, " Winning of the West," III., 45. 



THE LAST OF THE MUSQUAKIES. 329 

DISSOLUTION OF THE CONFEDERACY. 

Forces from without and internal dissensions were fast 
preparing the Sacs and the Foxes for a social dissolution of 
the confederacy formed a century before by their fathers on 
the rivers of Wisconsin. The treaty of 1842 provided that 
both tribes should move west of the Missouri River in three 
years, and a reservation was assigned to them in Kansas. 
Again were to be repeated the pathetic scenes so often 
enacted in the drama of our frontier life — the extinguishment 
of the lodge fires, the forming of the cavalcade, the last fare- 
well to the graves of kindred, and the solemn march of des- 
tiny toward the setting sun. When the last treaty was 
signed, a new epoch dawned in the history of the tribes, and 
it is scarcely probable that either Keokuk or Poweshiek was 
more than semiconscious of its significance. The interests 
which had held the tribes together for more than a hundred 
years had passed away with their conquest by the superior 
race; the bonds of union were loosened by the extermination 
or suppression of hostile tribes, and all their possessions, 
except an untried reservation west of the Missouri, were 
transferred to a trust fund held by the Government. In all 
the years of the confederacy each tribe maintained its indi- 
viduality, and the chief of neither ever assumed the chieftain- 
ship of both. Black Hawk and Keokuk were as boastful 
that they were Sacs, as Wapello and Poweshiek were proud 
that they were Foxes, and the years that follow witness the 
gradual separation of the two peoples, the social dissolution 
of the confederacy. 

The future welfare of the Musquakies now depended solely 
on that species of statecraft dubbed "diplomacy" among the 
greater nations of earth, but the cunning Foxes had practiced 
the art long before their chiefs and warriors began to treat 
with representatives of our Government. No minister about 
the court of St. James can be more suave in Britainizing a 
new ambassador from America than a Musquakie chief in 
deluding his conqueror with soft words. A master in protes- 



330 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

tation, he can equivocate, evade, and dilate in such profusion 
of simple graces as to entitle him to high rank in the noble art 
of lying for the good of one's nation. We have an example 
of the Musquakie art as early as 1726. M. de Lignery had 
assembled the Foxes, the Sauks. and the Winnebagoes in a 
conference at Green Bay, to demand of them, in the name of 
the king of France, that the unjust wars which they were 
waging against the Illinois should cease. The Sauks and the 
Winnebagoes, in direct and unequivocal terms, yielded to 
the demand, but the chief of the Foxes, who had been the 
aggressors in the wars against the Illinois, evaded the French- 
man with this soft reply: ''Since the Grand Onothio, the 
King, extends his hands to us, to signify this day that he 
wishes truly to pity us. our women and our children, thus, my 
Father. I give you today my word; although our young men 
are at war, I expect to gain them over." How well this 
feeble expectation was realized is told in the sad story of the 
Illinois, whose warriors numbered from four to five thousand 
at the time it was expressed, and in less than a century had 
been reduced to thirty, mainly by the wars waged against 
them by the Foxes and their allies. 

But now all depended on their art, and the story of how 
they outwitted secretaries and turned the policy of the Gov- 
ernment from active hostility to toleration and finally to favor, 
and reestablished themselves in Iowa on a patch of the very 
soil they ceded to the Government in 1842, is unique in the 
annals of our Indian history. 

The Musquakies loved their Iowa. When first they floated 
out of the mouth of the Wisconsin and down the Mississippi 
in search of rest, their canoes touched the west bank of that 
majestic stream at a beautiful spot suitable for landing, some- 
where between McGregor and Dubuque, and those in advance 
cried out to their companions, "I-o-way" [this is the place), 
and thus they christened the State. And so they loved to 
linger by their lodge fires even after the strong hand of the 
Government pointed them westward. After Keokuk and 



THE LAST OF THE MUSQUAKIES. 33 1 

Appanoose moved to the Des Moines River, Poweshiek kept 
watch by the banks of the Iowa where now the university of 
the State and a city bearing its name repose. When again 
the strong hand pointed them westward, Poweshiek and his 
people lingered by the waters of the Des Moines after Keokuk 
and the Sacs had extinguished for the last time their lodge 
fires east of the Missouri, and the march of the Musquakies 
westward was with slow and uncertain pace, as if fate was 
beckoning them back to the land of their birth and the graves 
of their fathers. But the soldier stood in the rear of this 
retreating column, and they pressed forward to unwelcome 
abodes only for fear of a harder fate. 

After the chase of 1847 the last of Poweshiek's band 
crossed the Missouri to join their brethren. The faithful 
squaw pitched the tepee and planted the corn, but earth 
refused to yield of her abundance as she had done in the val- 
ley of the Iowa. Nature no w conspired with sentiment and 
tradition to make the Musquakies unhappy. The children 
grew sallow, sickened and died in the feverish climate of the 
new reservation, and the specter of the plain made many a 
sturdy warrior its victim. A few autumnal suns tinged the 
leaves with golden hues and the great chief Poweshiek was 
gathered to his fathers. The women wept over the desola- 
tion of their lodges, and the old men and braves assembled in 
secret councils to make propitiations and to invoke the guid- 
ance of the Great Spirit. Poweshiek, under the spur of the 
Government, had led them out of a land of plenty, but it was 
not his happy lot to lead them back again. His death 
brought to the head of his people a young chieftain, incapable 
of leadership, and the counsels of the nation now devolved 
upon a few elders of the tribe. For several years small 
bands had made excursions back into Iowa, but in 1853 a 
general movement of the tribe was determined upon, and that 
winter witnessed smoke again ascending from the wigwams 
of the Musquakies along the banks of the Iowa. 

At first a few false rumors disturbed the quietude of- the 



332 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

settlers, but their fears were soon allayed by the peaceful 
mission of their visitors. Many of the warriors were person- 
ally known to the log-cabin pioneers of the Cedar, the Iowa, 
and the Des Moines river valleys. The little bands that had 
returned to Iowa a few years before had been conducted 
beyond the Missouri by military escort, and the elders of the 
tribe now adopted measures to prevent a recurrence of Fed- 
eral interference. Friendly relations were at once established 
with every settlement within their reach and the most rigid 
tribal discipline was enforced to prevent depredations or dis- 
turbances by reckless members of the band. Prominent 
citizens were waited on and their good offices sought, and the 
master-stroke of Musquakie statesmanship was reached when 
a successful appeal was made to the State itself, and their 
residence legalized in a special act of the legislature in 1S56, 
further requesting the Secretary of War to pay the Indians 
their annuity in their new home. 

This sudden turn in Musquakie diplomacy outwitted the 
Federal authorities, and the secretary refused to honor the 
request of the Iowa legislature. The Indians resolved to 
forego all things, endure all things, to accomplish the object 
of their desire, and sent out from their village near Iowa City 
five of their trusted leaders, in the spring of 1857, to find a 
place where the Musquakie could pitch his wickiup, smoke 
his pipe in peace, and be at rest. When the last annuity had 
been received, small pieces of silver had been carefully put 
aside, their relatives and friends yet remaining in Kansas sent 
pledges of help, and those who had no money sold beads or a 
pony to contribute their share to the tribal fund required for 
the first purchase of land. After visiting many of the old 
haunts of the tribe, the commissioners selected a beautiful 
locality on the Iowa River, in Tama County, near a spot 
where once they had given battle to the Sioux, and purchased 
eighty acres of land for one thousand dollars, and here they 
chose to cast their lot with the white man, in an unequal con- 
test in life. Busy scenes now engaged the Musquakies, and 



THE LAST OF THE MUSQUAKIES. 333 

runners carried the good tidings to their friends as far away 
as Kansas. Their dead were reverently borne from distant 
places and buried with solemn and impressive ceremonies in 
the bluff in plain view of their new home, and the warriors of 
the Musquakies fell on their knees by the graves of their 
kindred and kissed the earth in gratitude to the Great Spirit 
for his goodness toward them. The valley below was soon 
bedecked with new tepees and enlivened with feasts and 
dances and the sound of the lover's flute. Nature and her 
children were again living in sweet accord, and the paleface 
had plighted his faith so long as the Indian should keep his 
vows. While peace thus dwelt in the breast of the Mus- 
quakie warrior, his body was pinched from hunger and cold, 
and his soul was sad for his women and children. The Sec- 
retary of War had been rigorous and exacting in his dealings 
with these children, and the Secretary of the Interior was 
scarcely less obstinate in clinging to precedents erected upon 
what has since seemed to have been partial and prejudicial 
evidence, and for many long winters the Musquakie warriors 
saw their women and children fade and die from hunger and 
cold, and they suffered the crime' of their paternal Govern- 
ment in silence. But in 1866 the citizens of Iowa volunteered 
to espouse the cause of the Indians, and the following January 
the secretary ordered an annuity payment. In the fall of 
1859, Mau-me-wah-ne-kah, the chief of the Foxes, and some 
of his people joined their Iowa friends, and when the first 
census was taken in 1866, two hundred and sixty-four persons 
were enrolled in camp, and some of the tribe were then 
hunting and trapping in other parts of the State and a few 
remained by the lodges of the Sacs in Kansas. Immediately 
after the first payment, the secretary again ordered the 
Indians to remove to Kansas and notified them that no more 
payments would be made in Iowa. This ruling was reversed 
in the following March by an act of Congress recognizing 
their legal residence in Iowa and directing the payment of 
their annuity in their new home. Between the annuity pay- 



334 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

ment and the act of Congress referred to, a new treaty was 
made between the confederated tribes and the Government, 
by representatives of the Indians remaining on the reservation 
in Kansas, by which the treaty of 1842 was in part abrogated. 
Like the first treaty with these tribes, this new one bears but 
few names, seven in all, and they chiefly the names of the 
Sacs; and further, like that first unfortunate document, the 
treaty of 1867 was sure to cause endless trouble between the 
tribes and the Government. The chief, counselors, and at 
least three-fourths of the Fox nation were at that time resid- 
ing in Iowa, and have ever since maintained that notice of the 
proposed treaty had not been given them. :i: It is curious to 
note that the first and last treaties with these confederated 
tribes were signed by so few persons, five and seven respect- 
ively, and these chiefly Sacs, while in all other important 
treaties, the chiefs and head men signed in large numbers, the 
Sacs for the Sac tribe and the Foxes for the Fox tribe. At 
the close of the War of 181 2, each of these nations entered 
into a treaty of peace with the United States independent of 
the other, the Foxes in 181 5 and the Sacs about a year later. 
The treaty of 1824 was signed by six Sacs and four Foxes; 
that of 1825 by thirteen Sacs and sixteen Foxes; the one of 
1830 by fourteen Sacs and fifteen Foxes; and the treaty of 
1832, at the close of the Black Hawk war, by nine Sacs and 
twenty-four Foxes; the treaty of 1837 by eleven Sacs and 
twelve Foxes; while the treaty of 1842 bears the signature of 
twenty-two Sacs and twenty-two Foxes. In consequence of 
the contentions growing out of the treaty of 1867 and the 
rulings of the Secretary of the Interior unfavorable to the 
Musquakies, both tribes for man) 7 years have retained attor- 
neys in Washington to represent their claims against the Gov- 
ernment and against each other, and, although Congress has 
three times attempted to redress the grievances presented by 
the Musquakies, important claims are still pending. 

*Maj. L,eander Clark, then their agent, assures the author that no notice was given the 
Foxes in Iowa. 



B D 14 » 



THEODORE SUTTON PARVIN. 335 

The ill-success of our Government in dealing with the 
Musquakies is not characteristic of the tribe, but unfortu- 
nately has been common to many tribes, but the cause of the 
failure in this particular instance seems to be plain and unique. 
In the first treaty the Musquakies were bound by a treaty 
made in the name of a confederacy which then really existed 
but with whose act they had no part, and in the last treaty 
the Government recognized a confederacy that had de facto 
ceased to exist a decade before the treaty was made. The 
social union of the Sacs and Foxes had really ceased to exist 
as soon as the treaty of 1842 was signed. It lingered in 
broken form a few years longer, but had passed beyond 
recognition prior to 1867. The legal partnership had not 
been dissolved and a distribution of property made, but com- 
plete and permanent separation had taken place, and the two 
peoples were again two nations, as distinct in all that per- 
tained to their Indian life as they were when arrayed against 
each other at Fort Detroit. It was the failure of our Govern- 
ment to appreciate this significant fact that has made the 
Musquakies the most conservative of their race and multiplied 
the difficulties of imposing upon them the forms of a civiliza- 
tion they suspicion and which they do not want. 



THEODORE SUTTON PARVIN. 



BY JOHN SPRINGER. 




HEODORE SUTTON PARVIN was born Janu- 
ary 15, 181 7, at Cedarville, Cumberland county, 
New Jersey, the son of a seafaring man, who for 
years was captain of a vessel and much absent 
from home, so that his early education and training was 
largely given him by his mother, a lovely christian woman. 
In the fall of 1829 his father and family removed to Cin- 



336 IOWA HISTORICAL RECORD. 

cinnati, then the metropolis of "the west." Here young 
Parvin received a very thorough education, graduating from 
Woodward College. He also taught in Cincinnati, using 
the manuscript of two books later known far and wide as 
Ray's Arithmetic and McGuffey's Readers. He was espe- 
cially proficient in mathematics, but upon his graduation in 
1836, he decided upon the law as his vocation and studied in 
the office of Hon. Timothy Walker, a famous practitioner, 
and in the Cincinnati Law School, from which he graduated 
in 1837 and began the practice of his profession. 

Hon. Robert Lucas, who had been appointed the first 
territorial governor of Iowa, about to take his office, met and 
was impressed with young Parvin at the home of a mutual 
friend in Cincinnati, where he had come to purchase books. 
Although the young man was barely of age, and had not 
been presented as a candidate for the position, the governor 
was so struck by his ability and character that he tendered 
him, quite unsought, the place of private secretary. He 
accepted the offer and came with the governor to Burlington, 
where he arrived in the early summer of 1838. In August 
he was at Dubuque, where Judge Thos. S. Wilson issued to 
him the first certificate authorizing an attorney to practice 
law in Iowa. In November, at Burlington, he was the 
youngest of the sixteen attorneys admitted to practice in the 
territorial Supreme Court. 

In 1839, Governor Lucas appointed him prosecuting attor- 
ney for one of the districts of the Territory, and in this capacity 
he attended the first session of court held in Johnson county, 
May 13, 1839, at Gilbert's trading house, near the "laid out" 
town of Napoleon, now a part of the Stevens farm in Pleasant 
Valley. Judge, grand and petit juries, sheriff and clerk have 
long since passed away; the young attorney is the last to be 
called. At this time Mr. Parvin's residence was Blooming- 
ton, now Muscatine, where he remained until 1859. ^ n x 84° 
he was secretary of the Legislative Council, and the following 
year he resigned his office as prosecuting attorney and was 



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